Economic Stories of Relevance in Today's World -- July 7, 2013

Have Central Bankers Lost Control? Could The Bond Bubble Implode Even If There Is No Tapering? - The Economic Collapse Blog - July 4, 2013 - Are the central banks of the world starting to lose control of the financial markets?  Could we be facing a situation where the bond bubble is going to inevitably implode no matter what the central bankers do?  For the past several years, the central bankers of the planet have been able to get markets to do exactly what they want them to do.  Stock markets have soared to record highs, bond yields have plunged to record lows and investors have literally hung on every word uttered by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and other prominent central bankers.  In the United States, it has been remarkable what Bernanke has been able to accomplish.  The U.S. government has been indulging in an unprecedented debt binge, the Fed has been wildly printing money, and the real rate of inflation has been hovering around 8 to 10 percent, and yet Bernanke has somehow convinced investors to lend gigantic piles of money to the U.S. government for next to nothing.  But this irrational state of affairs is not going to last indefinitely.  At some point, investors are going to wake up and start demanding higher returns.  And we are already starting to see this happen in Japan.  Wild money printing has actually caused bond yields to go up.  What a concept!  And that is what should happen - when central banks recklessly print money it should cause investors to demand a higher return.  But if bond investors all over the globe start acting rationally, that is going to cause the largest bond bubble in the history of the planet to burst, and that will create utter devastation in the financial markets.                     Central banks can manipulate the financial system in the short-term, but there is usually a tremendous price to pay for the distortions that are caused in the long-term.                In Bernanke's case, all of this quantitative easing seemed to work well for a while.  The first round gave the financial system a nice boost, and so the Fed decided to do another.  The second round had less effect, but it still boosted stocks and caused bond yields to go down.  The third round was supposed to be the biggest of all, but it had even less of an effect than the second round.  If you doubt this, just check out the charts in this article.                 Our financial system has become addicted to this financial "smack".  But like any addict, the amount needed to get the same "buzz" just keeps increasing.  Unfortunately, the more money that the Fed prints, the more distorted our financial system becomes.                      The only way that this is going to end is with a tremendous amount of pain.  There is no free lunch, and there are already signs that investors are starting to wake up to this fact.                      As investors wake up, they are going to realize that this bond bubble is irrational and entirely unsustainable.  Once the race to the exits begins, it is not going to be pretty.  In fact, the are indications that the race to the exits has already begun...


Breaking News–Today’s Job Report - Paul Craig Roberts - July 5, 2013 - Do you remember the promise of the New Economy that was going to replace the lost “dirty fingernail” manufacturing jobs with innovative highly paid New Economy jobs? Well, the promise was just another deception from the elites who have stolen Americans’ future.                    For the umpteenth consecutive month and year, the June BLS payroll jobs report (released on July 5) shows that the US economy has created no such jobs. The same old tired categories account for the same old lowly paid new domestic service jobs.                      Of the 195,000 new private sector jobs alleged to have been created, 75,000 or 38% are accounted for by the category “leisure and hospitality.” Within this category there were 52,000 new waitresses and bartenders, and 19,000 jobs in “amusements gambling, and recreation.”             Retail trade added 37,000 employees. Is your local shopping center that busy?                   Wholesale trade added 11,000.                         Zero Hedge points out that the retail and wholesale jobs numbers seem inconsistent with the latest report from the Institute of Supply Management, which shows a sharp drop in new order components and business activity. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-07-03/non-manufacturing-ism-crashes-lowest-february-2010-new-orders-devastated-july-2009-l Perhaps the New Economy’s inefficiency requires more people to sell less.                     Professional and business services added, allegedly, 53,000 jobs, which are largely building management services, janitors, employment services, and temporary help.              Ambulatory health care services added 13,000 jobs.                       Financial activities allegedly added 17,000 jobs despite the Bank of America moving its property appraisals to India. http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/blog/morning-edition/2013/07/bank-of-america-routing-property.html?ana=lnk                         Local government, despite severe budget cuts, added 13,000 jobs.                     The BLS news release points out that the number of involuntary part-time workers (the number of people who are unable to find full-time jobs or whose hours were cut back) increased by 322,000 in June to 8.2 million.                     This deplorable report provided the cover for the market riggers to take the stock market up and the gold market down. Remember that economic theory about “rational markets”? Another deception.


Wonder why America is failing?  53 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year - Social Security Online - (Check out the Stats)



The American Middle Class Under Stress - Sherle R. Schwenninger and Samuel Sherraden - New America Foundation - April 2011

Wages and Salaries as a percentage of GDP

There are fewer Americans working in manufacturing today than there were in 1950 even though the population of the country has more than doubled since then.  The United States has lost more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities since 2001, and the bought off politicians and Wall Street types keep pushing to offshore jobs.

Only 47% of Adults Have Full-Time Job - Breitbart - Mike Flynn - July 5, 2013 - The release of the June Jobs' Report Friday was something of a relief for the markets. The Labor Department reported that the economy gained 195,000 jobs in June, which beat economists' expectations. The Department also reported that the economy gained 70,000 more jobs in April and May than it originally estimated. The report, however, also provides clear evidence that the the nation is splitting into two; only 47% of Americans have a full-time job and those who don't are finding it increasingly out of reach.                       Of the 144 million Americans employed last month, only 116 million were working full-time. Friday's report showed that 58.7% of the civilian adult population of 245 million was working last month. Only 47% of Americans, however, had a full-time job.                     The market's positive reaction to Friday's report is another sign of how far our economic expectations have fallen. If today the same proportion of Americans worked as just a decade ago, there would be almost 9 million more people working. Just in the last year, almost 2 million Americans have left the labor force. With a majority of the population not holding a full-time job, it isn't surprising that economic growth has been so weak.




Obamacare Strikes: Part-Time Jobs Surge To All Time High; Full-Time Jobs Plunge By 240,000 - Zero Hedge - Tyler Durden - July 5, 2013 - As a reminder: jobs have quantity and quality components. The quantity component was good enough to convince the 10 Year the taper is imminent (if not stocks, which continue to trade dislocated from any and all fundamentals). But how about the quality? In a word: not good. In June, the household survey reported that part-time jobs soared by 360,000 to 28,059,000 - an all time record high. Full time jobs? Down 240,000.  And looking back at the entire year, so far in 2013, just 130K Full-Time Jobs have been added, offset by a whopping 557K Part-Time jobs. And there is your jobs "quality" leading to today's market euphoria (if only for now).

06-06-13 - Macro Analytics - Coming cRACK uP BOOM = w/ John Rubino